Esteban Montejo, a onetime Cuban slave who lived to be 113, loved trees and the forests that held them. It's therefore no accident that Lisa Schlenker's scenic design for the just-opened Skylight Music Theatre production of "El Cimarrón" — Hans Werner Henze's musical adaptation of Montejo's remarkable autobiography — revolves around a massive tree.

Trees, Montejo continually suggests, are not just alive. They're also analogous to people, with their shadows expressly linked in his autobiography to human spirits. | Jan. 4, 2014»Read Full Article

Doc Severinsen returned to the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra Pops stage Friday evening with trumpet and flugelhorn in hand.

The former MSO Pops conductor appeared as a soloist on a program of jazz standards led by conductor Steven Reineke. The program featured soprano Ashley Brown and an MSO augmented by five saxes and a four-piece jazz combo. | Jan. 4, 2014»Read Full Article